Primary and Secondary Education

Until 1980, authority over all primary and secondary schools was
concentrated in the national government's Ministry of Public Education.
In addition to allocating funds to schools, the ministry certified the
qualifications of all teachers and employed those in the state-run
system. It developed all basic course content, even for private schools,
and approved all textbooks to be used throughout the country.

Primary school teachers were trained mainly in normal schools, most
of which were independent entities, although a few of these institutions
were attached to universities. Secondary school teachers generally were
graduates of pedagogical schools or university institutes, where
students would be trained in the different disciplines they would later
teach. Primary and secondary school teachers opting to work in the
state-run system were assigned to schools during the first three years
of their careers, a procedure that was meant to ensure that all rural
and provincial schools had the requisite staffing. The careers of
primary and secondary school teachers employed by the state were
controlled by a national statute that determined promotions according to
a point system and salaries according to a fixed scale. Salary
supplements were given to those who taught in areas that were
geographically isolated or had severe climates. Teachers also had job
tenure beyond a certain probationary period. The Ministry of Public
Education sponsored regular winter- and summer-vacation training
programs for teachers that were designed to bring them up to date with
curriculum changes and with new thinking in their disciplines. Merit
increases were given to those who participated in these programs.

The Ministry of Public Education gave subsidies to private schools
that did not charge tuition. These subsidies, amounting to about half
the per-student cost of public education, were based on calculations of
salary and other fixed costs. They were given primarily to schools
sponsored by the Roman Catholic Church, as well as by Protestant
churches. The teachers of these schools (except those who were in
religious orders or in the clergy) were supposed to have the same salary
and working conditions as teachers in the public system. Many teachers
in the state-run system supplemented their salaries by taking on
additional hours in the private schools, which were supposed to follow
the national curriculum whether or not they received state subsidies,
although they were free to add supplementary courses. All state-run
primary and secondary schools were visited regularly by supervisors
employed by the Ministry of Public Education, who would observe classes
and monitor many final examinations. For purposes of certification, the
final examinations of all private secondary schools were conducted by
committees of teachers employed by the Ministry of Public Education.

Despite the successes of this education system in terms of expanding
enrollments and ensuring a uniform standard of quality across the
nation, the military regime's social and economic planners thought it
gave the government too much influence over education, stifling parents'
and local communities' freedom of choice. They also thought the
administration of the system was too bureaucratic and inefficient.

The regime's education authorities decided to decentralize the
administration of state schools by turning them over to the municipal
governments. Presumably, the schools would thus become more responsive
to local demands and needs, although the Ministry of Public Education
continued to issue the basic guidelines to be followed in the curricula,
to approve textbooks, and, in principle, to require the certification of
teachers, although the standards became more flexible. Moreover, the
national program of school breakfasts and lunches was transferred, along
with the necessary resources, to the municipalities. The authorities
committed the necessary funding to maintain universal primary
enrollments and, after 1980, to continue to increase the size of
secondary enrollments, despite the severe economic downturn of 1982-83.

With the 1980 reforms, all teachers in the state-run system became
municipal employees, effectively ending the national system controlling
teachers' careers. The result was new inequalities in terms of income
and benefits for teachers. Despite increased education subsidies from
the central government to poorer municipalities, the richer school
systems were able to afford better teacher salaries and educational
facilities. In addition, beginning in 1988 municipal authorities were
permitted to fire teachers, ending the tenure they had enjoyed in the
national career system, a measure that generated widespread
manifestations of teacher discontent, including strikes.

The military government fostered the growth of privately run schools
by further facilitating the process through which they could obtain
subsidies. Moreover, tuition-free public and private schools were put on
an equal footing in terms of access to state funding when both began to
receive amounts calculated on a similar per-student basis. This amount
was prorated on the basis of student attendance records, a measure that
put the public systems at a disadvantage because private schools could
be selective in their admissions; they could therefore draw their
student body from those with more stable family backgrounds and hence
could require more regular attendance and better behavior. As a result
of these new incentives, enrollments in the publicly funded but
privately administered system increased at the expense of the
state-owned schools. In 1980, before the beginning of the reform
program, the state-run schools had enrolled about 79 percent of primary
and secondary students, private but state-subsidized schools enrolled 14
percent, and fully private schools (those that charged tuition) enrolled
7 percent. By the end of 1988, the proportion of students in the
state-run schools (by then under municipal control) had dropped to 60
percent, the private but state-subsidized schools' proportion had
increased to 33 percent, and the fully private schools continued to
enroll 7 percent. Other data suggest that the number of primary and
secondary students in private schools increased from 27 percent in 1981
to 56 percent in 1986. The authorities also transferred administration
of the state's vocational, industrial, and agricultural schools to
employer associations, although the public funding of these schools
continued.

The Aylwin government doubled funding for education by 1992 and began
to address the new challenge the nation confronted to increase the
quality of education. As part of this effort, the government examined
with renewed interest the issues of teacher morale, training, and
careers. It decided to reinvigorate the national continuing education
programs for teachers and to reintroduce a National Statute for
Teachers. This recreated in part the previous national career system,
with a minimum starting salary of about US$250 per month for primary
school teachers and promotions and raises based on years of service,
merit, additional training, and premiums for teaching in areas that were
isolated or had harsh climates. However, because of the Aylwin
government's commitment to the decentralization of authority,
administration of the system of primary and secondary schools remained
to a significant extent in the hands of local governments, with
continued efforts to provide increased funding to the poorer
municipalities and regions. An initiative by the Aylwin government also
committed it to increasing technical training of workers and of youth
who had already left the education system. By the end of 1993, about
100,000 people, principally youth, had graduated from such training
programs.